The first dealership at the Scottsdale Auto Show opened earlier this month, and more are scheduled to open next month.
The development at the Loop 101 and Indian School Road, which will be around 70 acres altogether, is on the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community. Because it’s on tribal land, Scottsdale will not collect sales tax on cars that are sold there.
A spokesperson for the tribe says in an email that the state and Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community will get tax revenue, although the tribe’s revenue projections are not public.
To get a sense of the money situation with this project, we talked to Georganna Meyer, an economist with the Maguire Company and former chief economist at the Arizona Department of Revenue.
We also reached out to Phoenix and Scottsdale to find out what they think about the potential of lost sales tax revenue.
A spokesman for Phoenix emailed us that the city’s tax division hasn’t discussed or analyzed the potential loss of revenue from this project.
A Scottsdale spokesperson said in an email that the city will keep a “close watch on the auto sales tax revenue source in future fiscal years and adjust financial projections as necessary.”
